Northwest Aims to Be 'Clean Energy' Leader

Article excerpt

As official Washington argues over a national energy policy based
largely on fossil fuels, the Pacific Northwest is pushing to become
a leader in "green" energy development worldwide.

Businesses, utilities, government agencies, and homeowners across
the region are taking up the cause of environmentally friendly
energy - everything from the world's largest wind farm along the
Columbia River gorge to the world's only solar-powered Shakespeare
festival here in southern Oregon.

Seattle City Light is the first municipally owned utility in the
country officially committed to eliminating 100 percent of its
global warming emissions. The Washington Technology Center at the
University of Washington is working with industry groups on
miniature fuel cells.

And even the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal agency
in charge of the massive hydropower dams that produce about half the
region's electricity, is on its way to becoming the largest supplier
of wind energy in the country. BPA also is conducting the world's
first residential pilot program for fuel cells (which combine
hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, leaving only water).

"We're on the threshold of an energy efficiency revolution," says
Washington Governor Gary Locke. "If we're smart, we'll stay a step
ahead of the market and provide the clean-energy decade with the
tools it needs."

Creating jobs

Clean energy is already a $1.4 billion business in Washington,
Oregon, and British Columbia, according to a recent market analysis
published by Climate Solutions, a nonprofit organization in Olympia,
Wash. That's expected to grow to $4 billion a year over the next 20
years, creating as many as 32,000 new jobs.

The prospect of jobs is a very important component here. With the
recent slowdown in high-tech industries and Boeing Company's
headquarters move from Seattle to Chicago, Oregon and Washington are
the worse-off states in the nation in terms of unemployment. As
questions of deregulation, cost, foreign imports, and environmental
impact swirl around the debate over a national energy strategy,
officials here see hope in the future of renewable energy.

"There are emerging industries capable of creating new jobs that
not only strengthen our economy, but also promote the conservation
values unique to the Pacific Northwest," says Vera Katz, mayor of
Portland, Ore.

Mayor Katz recently announced that the city is wooing Vestas Wind
Systems of Denmark.

The company, one of the largest makers of wind turbines in the
world, is considering Portland as the site of a large manufacturing
facility - a move that could mean 600 new jobs.

Not everyone is so starry-eyed about the economic promise of
renewable energy. The Cato Institute, a research foundation in
Washington that advocates limited government and free markets,
asserts that without government support the renewable-energy
industry "would cease to exist. …